


Fat Ninny

by Zoya1416



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Comment Fic, Gen, Horses, Tall Tales, Veterinary care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 19:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4717529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“ This is the last animal that the Count my grandfather personally trained. He named him. I watched him get born. We trained him together. Grandfather had me pick him up and hold him every day for a week after he was foaled till he got too big.”</p><p>Mountains of Mourning, Miles to Dr. Dea when he sutures Fat Ninny's knife wound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fat Ninny

Dr. Dea was not at all interested in horses. His selection to be the Prime Minister's personal physicians had included beating out twenty-six other candidates, practicing seventy different emergency procedures, as well as his normal extensive medical training. He'd grown up in Vorbarr Sultana, and only left it in the train of the Prime Minister. He'd joined the cavalcade from Vorkosigan Surleau to the rude huts of the Dendarii mountains at the direct order of Count Aral Vorkosigan, but nothing could make him like it, or even make it easy to endure.

His horse hated him and would throw him off again and again. Ensign Lord Vorkosigan said it was only shying at an inexperienced rider, but what did you call it when a trotting horse—a sorrel mare, they'd said, but what was sore about her? HE was sore because she stopped dead still on him while she was trotting, and he fell off, again. Lord Vorkosigan said she was scared of a black stick in the middle of the path, thinking it was a snake. Personally, an animal which couldn't tell a stick from a snake was not bright enough to keep around, in his opinion. 

Everyone else could at least sit on a horse without falling off, including the hill woman whose daughter's death they were investigating. When she'd ever had a chance to ride on a horse, he had no idea. Maybe hill people just came by the skill automatically? Natural selection? Not enough generations to make that possible.

It was a relief to be off the damn thing.

The long horrible day in the hills had wound to an end. He'd solved the question about the infant's death—deliberate neck fracture, easy to find if they'd even tried.  
After being gawked at by the skinny hillpeople for hours, he'd shared in a country feast. He'd given up trying to determine if poisons had been put in my lord's food or drink—so many others were eating and drinking from the same containers that it had to be safe. Finally all the festivities had ended at midnight. He soon slept heavily in the Karal family's loft with my lord and the Armsman Pym. 

Then had come the scream of the horses—a noise he'd never heard before and did not think he could forget—and he was out of bed examining Pym, who'd been kicked by the lord's horse and had a couple of rib fractures. Then the horse itself, with a huge long cut along its neck, almost to the jugular. He'd treated it just as if the patient were human, as my lord demanded. Lord Vorkosigan was acting as if this were normal, but Dea knew how much these simple attentions cost. He'd used anesthetic stun, cleansing solution, antibiotics, muscle relaxants, and biotic glue, plus reinforcing net over the glue.

In these hills, he knew, people, many people probably, would have died of this type of wound because they had no access to even the medical care he could bring in a simple bag. He saw Ma Karal looking at his kit, and he could tell she was thinking the same thing. 

He'd finally gotten to leave the damned hill town, riding in the air van with Pym, the wounded Ninny, and the sorrel mare who hated him. At last he had his charges treated and made comfortable, and all the ambiguities of the last few days fell away as the van swam upward. Back to civilization.

Something still tickled his restless mind—not the justice, not any of the horror show, but something simple. Lord Vorkosigan had said that he'd picked up Fat Ninny for a week—but the man was tiny, not even five feet tall, and how small had be been when the horse was born? How big was a baby horse, anyway? The size of a puppy?

He drew out his pocket communicator and typed in a question. The math came back quickly. An average mare weighed about 1000 pounds, and—he blinked and rechecked—no matter what the size of the sire, the entry said, a foal would be 10% of the weight of its dam. One hundred pounds. Even he would struggle with that much weight as an adult. It simply couldn't have happened the way he'd been told.

What must have happened, then? Because he'd seen how docile Ninny was—unlike the mare—and obviously trained to a fine degree. The horse had knelt down for Lord Vorkosigan to step up to his stirrup—amazing! 

Fascinated despite himself, he pursued the topic further. Vorkosigan couldn't have picked up the animal, so—what? The little article gave details on how to gentle a horse so that it could ultimately be ridden. Pet it, stroke it, brush the fur, feed it treats. Count Piotr Vorkosigan had been a master equestrian and breeder—he must had made the little horse lie on the ground, so that the short boy could stand taller. Kept it lying there so it wouldn't run away—he glared in the mare's direction. 

A tall tale, then. But how would anyone ever know? The average Barrayaran knew as little about horses as he had, probably. It sounded good. He wondered briefly whether to mention this to Lord Vorkosigan quietly, when they were back. "The jig is up, my lord, I know you didn't pick up that horse." Nah, it would just cause him trouble. Leave sleeping horses—something.

But when they were all unloaded safely at Vorkosigan Surleau, and the Count's veterinarian had approved his work on Fat Ninny, he found a moment to be alone in the barn. Quickly, so no one would see him, he patted the horse on the uninjured side of the neck. It shivered its skin, but now he knew that was normal.

“Here, you big doofus,” he said, and brought out a couple of sugar cubes. It wasn't even too awful feeling the horse nibble them up with its lips. “I'll keep your secret for the little lord. He loves you, and you love him, and that's it.”

Passing back down the the house, he wondered. He'd never had a pet, but you could get used to feeling one, that soft life under your hand. But not a cat; it would run away, or a dog—dogs were just too unsettling, all those sharp teeth. He'd have to look in Vorbarr Sultana. Wasn't there something called a guinea pig, that he knew wasn't a real pig? Ate vegetables, or something? Anyway, there were probably a lot of little things that weren't hundred pound horses. He'd check his next day off.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my 100th fan fiction, and just a little love note to horses. Sweet, gentle Shetland ponies who will kick you in the chest if you don't watch out, and deliberately step on your foot, taller ones who will run away with you, buck you off, try to nip. And good ones, where you can ride together, bumping a little at the trot, but together anyway, surveying a mesquite pasture like it was 150 years ago. Rest in peace, American Saddle Horse Lucky.


End file.
